The Hankamer School of Business hosted a career fair for Professional Selling and Marketing majors Thursday. This career fair is one of many ways in which the Professional Selling department is able to provide real-world experience for its students.
According to the Baylor Professional Selling website, “corporate participants will meet with Marketing and Professional Selling majors in an open, informational forum at individual booths,” in order for students to learn more about the specific company and the industry as a whole.
Marketing and Professional Selling career fairs are geared towards students who wish to go into a career in sales. Companies who partner for the career fairs are “looking for people to fill marketing roles, but they also have a lot of companies there looking for people to go into sales roles,” senior Professional Selling major Susan Sullivan said.
Professional Selling, or ProSales is a small program within the Hankamer School of Business which equips students to enter the workforce confidently and ahead of the curve. Unlike other business majors, ProSales majors are able to participate in events, competitions and other training seminars as a part of the major program.
Within the ProSales curriculum, “there are two Top Gun Trainings, which is where we have corporate executives who are partners with us come in and work with us, sometimes one-on-one, on resumes, interviewing tips and things like that,” Sullivan said.
According to the Professional Selling website, students within the program must attend the two Top Gun Training programs as well as multiple competitions, a ProSales Golf Outing, and many other professional development events. According to Sullivan, due to the smaller size of the department, students are able to “seek help” from professors and peers with ease.
According to the website, the four competitions which students are able to participate in are: Baylor Business Business Development, Baylor Business Selling Outside, Baylor Business Value Analysis and Baylor Business Ethics Competitions. The competitions are often judged by corporate executives which further allows Professional Development students to showcase their work and abilities for potential employers.
Although two career fairs are usually put on each year, this year students were able to participate in a “reverse career fair,” Sullivan said. Students were given the opportunity to showcase themselves to potential employers and “showcase why companies should be interested in [the students],” Sullivan said. Rather than walking through the fair to speak to representatives from different companies, the representatives were able to browse the booths and find students who they feel will add to their company.
Professional Selling at Baylor University is said to have a 100 percent job placement rating upon graduation. According to Sullivan, who has already successfully landed a job at AppDynamics in Dallas, around 75 percent of the graduating seniors have already signed for a job post-graduation, she said.
Attending a school like Baylor University can cost someone over $200,000 over the course of four years. Having events such as career fairs provide the opportunity for students to begin to prepare for a successful future. According to sophomore Finance, Marketing and Economics major Jenna Cwalina, career fairs, such as the Marketing and Professional Selling Career Fair, allow for students to become better prepared through exposure to the professional environment, interview practice, and the opportunity to learn more about potential employers.
